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The results of a poll conducted in Iraq by the International Republican Institute on voter preferences for the upcoming election in January 2005 have been released. The most popular politician amongst Iraqis, as reported by the Washington Post, was Abdel Aziz Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). He had 80% name recognition, with around 51% of Iraqis wanting him to be in the National Assembly (which will pick a new government.) The opinion poll did, however, exclude Ibrahim Jafari, the current Iraqi vice president, head of the Dawa Party and in previous polls the recipient of the highest popularity ratings.

The Washington Post noted the Islamist SCIRI's past and current connections with Iran, who sponsored and housed the anti-Saddam opposition group since its founding in 1982. Less known, however, is the history of SCIRI's collaborative relationship with another country in the region, Syria. Some details of these contacts can be found in a paper written by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's Middle East adviser, David Wurmser, in December 1996 for the Israeli think-tank The Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies, titled "Coping with Crumbling States: A Western and Israeli Balance of Power Strategy for the Levant." It was a follow up paper to the now infamous "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" report, summarising a group discussion by a handful of so-called neoconservatives, including Mr. Wurmser, Douglas Feith and Richard Perle. "A Clean Break" was an open pitch to then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a new strategy for his time in office, essentially calling for measures to bring about a more self-reliant, strong and economically sound country. One of the proposed strategies contained in the report was to support efforts to eliminate Saddam from the scene. The report was rejected by Mr. Netanyahu.

A key point of "Crumbling States" was that Syria, in the 1990s, had identified "the emerging power vacuum in Iraq" and wanted to fill it, with Mr. Wurmser noting that:

* Syria hoped to achieve this through opposition groups that it controlled, countering the Iraqi National Congress (INC).

* Jordan had signalled that it was interested in a post-Saddam Iraq.

* Jordan had begun to work with the INC to enable them to overthrow Saddam.

* If Jordan and the INC were not supported by Israel in their endeavour, Syria would succeed, eventually gaining control over Iraq and having the balance of power over Jordan and Israel, Jordan having started to cooperate more with Israel in 1994 after their peace deal.

* If Jordan were able to win in the anti-Saddam opposition stakes, Israel would also win, with Syria being isolated, a friendly Turkey flanking them on the other side.

One of the main opposition groups that worked closely with Syria during the first half of the 90s, their relationship recorded in great detail by Mr. Wurmser in "Crumbling States," was SCIRI.

When the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act was passed unanimously by the Senate in October 1998, SCIRI was a likelyrecipient of potential funding. In January 1999 it was duly named by President Clinton as one of the "Iraqi democratic opposition organizations" being eligible for assistance, as required by the Act.

As events unfolded, they gained much legitimacy. Although they declined funding from the U.S. – they had been receiving funding from Iran anyway – they did reap other benefits, including being invited to Washington and meeting with the likes of President Bush and Mr. Feith as preparations for the war unfolded.

It elaborated on many aspects of "Crumbling States," but this time focusing on past U.S. attitudes and efforts towards Saddam and the region, which included:

* A mistaken view that through appeasement of Pan-Arabic nationalism and Ba’thism, and the strong centralised state that is integral to their natures, stability in the Middle East region could be maintained.

* Not seeing that Pan-Arabic nationalism and Ba’thism was a primary cause of violence and anti-Americanism in the Middle East.

* Engaging in insufficiently serious efforts towards getting rid of Saddam, with a preference for ineffectual "silver bullet" coups as against insurgency operations.

* Building up the INC from 1992, then abandoning support for the INC’s early 1995 quest to launch a military operation against Saddam from the safe haven of northern Iraq, which set the stage for Saddam to prevail, as well as let Syria and Iran take the initiative with the Kurdish opposition groups.

He advised that the U.S. should, among other things:

* Stop the appeasement of Ba’thism and instead follow the INC’s view that "managed chaos" rather than "centralized control" will bring stability to the Middle East.

* Support a Jordan-Israel-Turkey alliance, through the INC, to successfully counter Syrian, as well as Iranian, efforts at deposing Saddam.

* See U.S. military involvement as a last resort and an occupation of Iraq as undesirable.

Completely missing from "Tyranny’s Ally," however, were the Syrian connections with SCIRI. In fact, SCIRI (in "Crumbling States" he refers to them by their alternative acronym, SAIRI) only got one mention, having received 20 in "Crumbling States," and that a reference to Iran moving their military wing, the Badr forces, into northern Iraq by late 1995.

Then leader of SCIRI, the late Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim, killed last August along with over 100 others by a car bomb at Iraq’s holiest Shi’ite shrine site in Najaf, and who received over 40 mentions in "Crumbling States," got only one and that in the footnotes related to the Badr forces story. He was the late Ayatollah Khomeini's choice to be head of an Islamic Republic of Iraq.

Syria’s courting of opposition groups was reduced to Kurdish groups. Yet a few years before in "Crumbling States," a substantial amount of the courting was for SCIRI; this reaching out to Iraqi opposition groups being one of the main bases for him calling for urgent support for Jordan and the INC.

But that's not all.

In "Crumbling States," Mr. Wurmser described the roots of Syria’s role in recruiting opposition groups after the Gulf War, excluding the INC, which it "never had close relations with." In fact, in "October 1992, when a major INC conference convened in Salaheddin in northern Iraq, not only did Damascus and Tehran-based groups refuse to attend, but the meeting was pilloried."

The INC was a threat to Syria’s aims in the region. Thus, "Syria has attempted ever since the Gulf War to topple Saddam under the banner of an alternative, Damascene/Tehran-based opposition. Such attempts date back as far as late December 1991. At that time, Syria’s President Asad met with Iran’s powerful agent in southern Iraq, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim of the Shiite Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), who came to Damascus at Asad’s invitation, to coordinate a coup attempt against Saddam."

But in reality, not only didSCIRIattend the October 1992 meeting; they also had three members elected on to the INC’s 26-member council executive council, whose president was Mr. Chalabi. One such member, Dr. Hamid Al-Bayati, who was also Ayatollah al-Hakim’s representative in London, served on the executive council from 1992 to 1998, according to the website of the recently defunct Coalition Provisional Authority.

However, there is nothing at all about this from Mr. Wurmser. That an experienced and well-connected man like Mr. Wurmser wasn’t aware of this seems inconceivable, especially considering that he could have just picked up the phone to the executive council’s president, Mr. Chalabi. When it came to the writing of "Tyranny’s Ally" a couple of years later, his account of the October 1992 conference noted the presence of ‘Shi’ites from southern Iraq’ but had no explicit inclusion of SCIRI.

The irony of it all is that Mr. Wurmser is seen as a hawk on Syria. And it could possibly turn bitter in the future. In October of last year their leader and then member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, the brother of the slain Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim, proclaimed during a visit to Syria that an attack on Syria would be considered an attack on Iraq.

Greenland is caught in quite a vicious circle. When the social-democratic Siumut (“Forward”) party and the socialist Inuit Ataqatigiit (“Inuit Brotherhood”) party formed a coalition government in 2002, independence from Denmark seemed a little step closer. The Siumut party got 28.7% of the votes, retaining their leading party status, with their leader Hans Enoksen clinching the Prime Minister post. The Inuit Ataqatigiit party received 25.5% of the votes, with their leader Josef Motzfeldt (not to be confused with Greenland’s first PM, Jonathan Motzfeldt, who held the post from 1979 to 1991 and from 1997 to 2002) becoming Deputy Prime Minister. With widespread public support for independence, the two parties, who both have advocated for more local control over the world's largest island, put aside various public political spats and decided to hold a referendum on the matter in 2005.

Denmark, which has control over Greenland's foreign affairs, defence, justice system, as well as its mineral and oil resource management, favours granting the already semi-autonomous Greenland more autonomy but is not willing to go all the way by giving it sovereignty and thus true independence. Greenland (population 56,000) was officially a colony of Denmark from 1814 (when Norway was separated from Denmark after the Napoleonic Wars) until 1953, when it was incorporated into the Kingdom, with home rule status being granted in 1979.

While support in Greenland for independence is broad, many are of the opinion that only once the country is able to stand on its own two feet economically should independence be sought. The crutch is Danish aid, which will make up 57% (at about US$8,670 per person) of Greenland’s 2005 budget. A recently set up joint Greenland-Denmark commission has been looking into ways that Greenland can dramatically cut down on government spending and government involvement in providing jobs, reduce their dependence on fishing, and instead concentrate on mining, oil and tourism. As long as the current standard of living is not damaged, most locals would then be keen for a split from the Danes.

The United States’ Thule military base in the northwest, which has been around since 1953 and was the subject of a defence treaty signed in 1951 between Denmark and the US, is seen as another potential source of income for Greenland. It was once a key installation during the Cold War, housing up to 10,000 mainly American personnel, along with fighter jets and bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons, taking up several-hundred square kilometres of space. While Greenland was promised that nuclear weapons would not be kept there, a secret memo was found in the 1990s contradicting that promise. It now only has about 550 personnel, 150 of them Americans. But it is still important, serving as a key radar facility and listening post, capable of covering 5000 kilometres (including Russian territory). And in August the US, Denmark and Greenland signed an agreement that would allow modernisation of the base’s radar facilities, which can detect Ballistic Missiles as well as Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. But, as before, there was no agreement for the US to pay for its use of the base. Also missing was an agreement to clean up the mess caused by previously held US bases, although it was agreed that from then on there would be environmental and technical cooperation, as well as the chance of increased economic and trade ties.

The US military base has always been a hot potato in Greenland. When the base was completed in 1953 the Danish government relocated a local Inuit community away from their traditional hunting and fishing grounds. Fifty years later, the 900-strong community is still fighting the move. Last year the Danish Supreme Court upheld a court case that had been brought against Danish authorities, with a small payout given in compensation. Not satisfied, they took the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg earlier this year. The US had already given back some of the surrounding areas to Danish and local authorities.

There is huge controversy over the prospect that the Thule base could be used in the future as part of the proposed national missile defence system, which the US hopes would be able to intercept missiles, this possibly making Greenland a more obvious target. After the agreement was signed US Secretary of State Colin Powell said that, at this point, the US is “just interested in the software and minor hardware improvements to the system that Greenland is aware of and that Denmark is aware of.” Deputy PM Josef Motzfeldt was quoted as saying that “we haven't said 'yes' to the use (of modernized radar installations) in this missile defense system, which would call for new negotiations." The new agreement states that the US must “consult and inform Denmark and Greenland prior to the implementation of any significant changes to the United States military operations or facilities in Greenland.” Mr Powell then went on to say the “United States and Greenland and the Home Rule government, we are friends and partners and what we want to do is consult. We don't want to do anything that would put at risk a very strong relationship that we've had for these many, many years. So I think the word "consult" means just that, consult, and try to reach accommodation on any issue that might be in dispute, as we have done over the years.”

And while there is great trepidation over how the Thule base may develop in the future, and the influence that the US already has had over Greenland’s internal affairs, it is the world’s greatest power that seems to be Greenland’s greatest ally in their quest for independence, with Deputy PM Josef Motzfeldt having noted a recent shift in the diplomatic winds (Greenland looks to US in quest for independence, Agence France-Presse, 26 September 2004):

Following an agreement on the modernization of the base last month however, Greenlanders have begun seeing the superpower across the Atlantic as a potential ally in their quest for self-determination.

"It was (US Secretary of State) Colin Powell who demanded that we sit at the negotiating table during the (ongoing) overhaul of the 1951 Danish-American Defense Treaty concerning Greenland, to the great surprise of Denmark's foreign minister," Motzfeldt said.

"Washington recognizes us as an equal partner, which is not yet the case with Denmark," he added, pointing out that US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) after taking power in 2001 had even sent a letter requesting closer cooperation on the Thule base and other issues directly to Greenland's local government, and not, as tradition dictates, through Copenhagen.

In 1999, the film studio Warner Bros. released the critically acclaimed antiwar film "Three Kings," directed by David O. Russell. Set during the first Gulf War, it told the story of a small group of US soldiers who, at the end of the war, found some gold in Iraq that had been stolen from Kuwait and decided to take it themselves. Later they came across some Iraqi refugees and were faced with a tough choice.

This year "Three Kings" was to be re-released at the cinema and on DVD. Mr. Russell was commissioned to produce a documentary as a companion piece, apparently to concentrate on those involved behind-the-scenes, including some Iraqis. The final result, "Soldier's Pay," instead turned out to be a "polemic" about war according to Warner Bros. and not what was originally asked for. Additionally, Warner Bros. voiced concerns about the documentary being too political and possibly illegal in the run-up to the Presidential elections this November.

David O. Russell: "Warner Brothers, which wanted to rerelease 'Three Kings', said why don't you make something in addition to it? And I said, OK, we'll make a documentary. I interviewed veterans, I interviewed a general, I interviewed a congressman - a Republican congressman - and they later freaked out. They felt it was too partisan in the election climate because it asks a lot of questions about what's happening right now. So they gave it back to me, which was gracious. I was disappointed that they weren't going to release it themselves, which reflects a lot about our corporate culture, which is critiqued in 'I Heart Huckabees'."

Warner Bros has emphasized that it isn't the content of the film but Russell's intent to influence voters that an expert on Federal election regulations told them could be problematic. There is a general reluctance by the big studios to release political films during a campaign. A fact that became clear when it was revealed that Disney didn't want to distribute 'Fahrenheit 9/11'.

Tom Brook: "Do you think that the studios in Hollywood are more nervous now than they have been in a long, long time?"

David O. Russell: "Unquestionably."

Tom Brook: "And how does that manifest itself?"

David O. Russell: "I think they're part of media conglomerates. Five years ago when I made 'Three Kings', Warner Bros was a more independent place. Even when it was just Time Warner, which still seems rather large to you, it was not Time Warner AOL. And now I think they have huge political things going on in Washington with their business that they want to protect, and they're stepping very carefully about how they're perceived politically."

Tom Brook: "Do you think that this climate is constraining what filmmakers can do? Is there self-censorship among filmmakers?"

David O. Russell: "Hmmm. Interesting. I think that's a danger actually. You know, I didn't think that before. People would ask me that about 'Three Kings' and they would say, how did the studio let you make this movie? And I'd say, well, they did and they didn't seem to mind. So maybe it's not as uptight as you think. Nowadays, I don't know. Because now I'm starting to think that they're becoming more partisan. And if you look at the heads of every major media conglomerate, with just two exceptions, they're all Republicans. That's the climate we're living in."

Personal Partisanship

The president of Warner Bros., Alan Horn, is a Democrat supporter, while the head of its holding company, Time Warner Inc., Richard Parsons, is a Republican supporter. In fact, it was reported that Mr. Horn wanted to avoid the perception that he was being partisan by releasing the film. It must also be noted that Mr. Russell is himself partisan, clearly siding with Mr. Kerry who supported the war when it counted.

Commercial Reasons

A partisan boss would be taking quite a chance. After all, he has been put in by shareholders to make profits for them by catering well to its customers, not to get his favourite Presidential nominee elected. As the Dixie Chicks found with their lead singer's comment about being ashamed that President George W. Bush came from Texas, bad publicity is bad for business (although not for a Michael Moore), with radio stations boycotting their records due to angry elements of the American public.

Business Partisanship

As for the record of Time Warner Inc. at the business level, according to Federal Election Commission figures obtained from The Center for Responsive Politics, Time Warner Inc.'s Political Action Committee (PAC) has, at last count, given $123,000 (38%) to all federal Democratic candidates and $199,000 (62%) to all federal Republican candidates so far in the 2004 election cycle. In 2002 the ratio was 51% to Democrats and 49% to Republicans and in 2000 it was 44% to the Democrats and 56% to the Republicans. Time Warner Inc. taken as a whole, including PACs, individual employees and owners, for all subsidiaries and affiliates, have so far donated $2,056,000 at a ratio of 76% to the Democrats and 24% to Republicans. In 2002 the ratio was 76% to Democrats and 24% to Republicans and in 2000 it was 66% to the Democrats and 34% to the Republicans.

Certainly various companies (and unions, etc.) that lobby government may see one political party as more compatible with their own interests than another and they may gain favourable treatment as a result (eg. subsidies, contracts, cartelisation). But this is not a lifetime guarantee. Ask the traditionally Republican supporting tobaccoindustry who have come under the hammer of the Republican-run Justice Department.

Merely analysing which party favours whatever special interest tends to miss the point that while both political parties may go in and out of power, it is the source of their power, government, that can ultimately giveth and take away; because only it can, by force. And that is a reason why Mr. Russell contradicted himself in the interview, when he stated that the media conglomerates are partisan, as well as being worried about being seen as partisan (as they want to protect their business).

Pragmatism

Now Mr. Russell has referred to "huge political things" going on with Time Warner Inc. in the seat of government in Washington D.C. While he doesn't elaborate on what these are, they may relate to opposition to the proposed introduction of a la carte cable programming as opposed to the current bundling provision of content, which the larger cable suppliers say will lead to "fewer choices, less diversity, higher prices."

Congress then may pass legislation to increase regulation over the running of the cable television industry. Republican Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, is a prominent proponent of forced a la carte programming. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was asked by Congress to look into the matter and report back by the 18th of November.

Debate* over the complicated results from the regulation of the cable television industry is of course not new and nor is government control over it; the same institution that was, for instance, responsible for the emergence of cable television monopolies at the local level. Government has, in effect, once again anointed itself more knowledgeable[pdf file] of the market than the market itself. There is much evidence* that interventionism, besides breeding more of the same, is also responsible for the diversion of resources away from their most valued uses as determined on the market and instead towards those determined to be more valuable by government officials and special interests, the results of which can be harmful.

Anti-Competitive Opportunities

Lobbying of government by companies is not just limited to getting government off their backs. It is also employed to get out underneath more effective competitors or to block the progress of smaller rivals. Microsoft was smothered in the 1990s with an anti-trust suit by the federal government with the help of Microsoft's rival, Netscape, who used to be the kingpins of the web browser market before being bettered by Microsoft.

In 2002, Netscape (owned by AOL Time Warner) brought a suit against Microsoft, an action that didn't please Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler (News.com, 22 January 2002):

"AOL Time Warner has been using the political and legal system to compete against Microsoft for years. This is just the next tactic in their litigation plans. Microsoft is investing to build new products, while AOL invests in lawyers and lobbyists to put roadblocks in Microsoft's way."

Which is pretty much what happened in 1999 when Microsoft, amongst others, accused AOL of blocking their own instant messengers from AOL's customers and took it to the federal government.

It is no coincidence that Microsoft upped its lobbying substantially in Washington after it was gunned for, with more time and resources being spent on satisfying interests in government as opposed to those of consumers.

So what?

I don't know for sure whether Warner Bros. dropped the documentary due to a personally partisan boss, legal reasons, commercial reasons or because it wanted to positively influence (or not be negatively influenced by) Washington. But that the latter is possible should at least give some pause to those who are quick to blame the market for most of the ills that ail the world (and if they do place blame on government, it is usually lighter and coming much further behind). Criticism of corporations is well and good when clear instances of fraud, aggressive physical coercion and the like have occurred. That corporations try to influence (some would put it in harsher terms: bribe) those in government for their own benefit is hard to deny. As too is the proposition that if it weren't for the ability and propensity of government to wield this discriminatory power, corporations wouldn't get very far with their efforts. Yet the market is itself all too often blamed for the sins of a group of its actors who, fearful of it, run for the cover of the institution that, quite hypocritically, is itself capable of being turned against them.

A happy ending

I haven't seen Mr. Russell's latest feature, "I Heart Huckabees," which he says has critiques of "corporate culture," so I'm not exactly sure what he means. But if what he has said in various interviews is any indication, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that if he addresses the free market, it will be misconstrued.

The irony of the whole affair is that while market bashing in films is widespread, government is usually given a much smoother ride (except when it is being nefariously influenced by corporations). After all, Mr. Russell's documentary was picked up by indie film company Cinema Libre, to be shown along with another anti-war documentary "Uncovered: The War on Iraq," with the dreaded market coming through. Can you imagine what kind of films would be shown if only the government were allowed to decide what could be shown?

*For further reading:

1. Bundling vs. a la carte

The upshot of a la carte programming is that instead of consumers having to subscribe to a whole bunch of channels, some of which they will never watch, cable television providers would have to let consumers choose and pay for only the individual channels they want to watch.

- The U.S. General Accounting Office (now General Accountability Office) produced a report [pdf file] last year, concluding that a la carte programming should not be regulated. The free-market Cato Institute welcomed the findings. Commentator John Garfunkel rejected them.

There was much controversy when Afghanistan’s Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Fazil Hadi Shinwari, then 73 years of age, placed a ban on cable television last year, due to its content being un-Islamic. It became a good opportunity for critics of what was seen as the threat from Islamists in power in Afghanistan to criticise his qualifications to be in his position, citing article 105 of the 1964 Afghanistan constitution, which included the proviso that the Chief Justice could only be appointed by the king (with President Karzai effectively standing in this position) if he was between the age of 40 and 60, as well as having “sufficient knowledge of jurisprudence, the national objectives, and the laws and legal system in Afghanistan.” The International Crisis Groupcharged that he had stacked the Supreme Court with hardline judges who, like him, had no secular legal education. And they also feared that “the Afghan justice system has been taken over by hardliners before the Afghan people have had a chance to express their will in a democratic process.”

Mr. Shinwari, a Pashtun (with ethnicity being an important factor in any political appointment - Pashtuns make up 40% of the Afghan population), was appointed Chief Justice in December 2001 by then president Burhanuddin Rabbani, just before the Bonn agreement (the result of a U.N.-sponsored Afghan peace conference after the ousting of the Taliban from power the previous month) was adopted on the 5th of December. Two major outcomes of the Agreement were the establishment of an Afghan Interim Administration for six months (which would be and was replaced by the Afghan Transitional Authority in June 2002 after an emergency Loya Jirga elected Mr. Karzai as its President), as well as the adoption of the ostensibly secular 1964 constitution, subject to the provisions of the Bonn Agreement. After being appointed Chief Justice by the Interim Administration in January 2002, he was again made Chief Justice in June 2002, this time by the Transitional Authority, a position he retains to this day.

"I think the knowledge I have in Islamic studies and principles is enough for a chief justice," he said. "I will never accept and am not obliged to learn any law or regulation opposing Islamic law." But he acknowledged that "there are some foreign rules and regulations that are similar to Islamic laws, such as human rights, and I will never oppose them."

"I will never ignore Islamic principles for the sake of anyone. And I would oppose anything that leads society to non-Islamic actions." He said he decided to ban cable television after investigating complaints by several people about its un-Islamic content, which included Indian movies and western programmes that showed women in scanty clothes.

The deputy minister of information and culture, Abdul Hameed Mubarez, was not convinced (IWPR, 28 March 2003):

"The chief justice should first of all be acquainted with non-Islamic principles. If he is not, he should have people to give him sound and constructive advice. I am optimistic that the matter will be considered in the new constitution."

I wonder what Mr. Mubarez thought when the new constitution was passed by a Loya Jirga on the 4th of January 2004 and signed into law by Mr. Karzai a few weeks later.

Article 118, dealing with the qualifications of the Supreme Justice (who is to be chosen and can be dismissed by the Afghan President), states that not only isn't there a maximum age for the Chief Justice, but only a “higher education in legal studies or Islamic jurisprudence, as well as expertise and adequate experience in the judicial system of Afghanistan” is required.

And what kind of expertise, indeed, what kind of laws will allowed to be promulgated is vague and circular, inevitably open to conflicts, as these excerpts from the Constitution show:

The sacred religion of Islam is the religion of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
Followers of other faiths shall be free within the bounds of law in the exercise and performance of their religious rituals.

Article 3

No law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion of Islam in Afghanistan.

[Article 130 on amendments, notes: “The provisions of adherence to the fundamentals of the sacred religion of Islam and the regime of the Islamic Republic cannot be amended.”]

Article 6

The state shall be obliged to create a prosperous and progressive society based on social justice, preservation of human dignity, protection of human rights, realization of democracy…

Article 7

The state shall observe the United Nations Charter, inter-state agreements, as well as international treaties to which Afghanistan has joined, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The state shall prevent all kinds of terrorist activities, cultivation and smuggling of narcotics, and production and use of intoxicants.

Article 34

Freedom of expression shall be inviolable.
Every Afghan shall have the right to express thoughts through speech, writing, illustrations as well as other means in accordance with provisions of this constitution.
Every Afghan shall have the right, according to provisions of law, to print and publish on subjects without prior submission to state authorities.
Directives related to the press, radio and television as well as publications and other mass media shall be regulated by the law.

Article 35

To attain moral and material goals, the citizens of Afghanistan shall have the right to form associations in accordance with provisions of the law.

The people of Afghanistan shall have the right, in accordance with provisions of the law, to form political parties, provided that:
1. Their manifesto and charter shall not contravene the Holy religion of Islam, and principals and values enshrined in this constitution;
2. Their organizations and financial resources shall be transparent;
3. They shall not have military or quasi-military aims or organizations; and
4. They shall not be affiliated with foreign political parties or other sources.

And when laws haven’t even be made:

Article 130

In cases under consideration, the courts shall apply provisions of this Constitution as well as other laws.

If there is no provision in the Constitution or other laws about a case, the courts shall, in pursuance of Hanafijurisprudence, and, within the limits set by this Constitution, rule in a way that attains justice in the best manner.

That is, in pursuance of the rulings of Islamic scholars on Islamic, or Sharia, law, by the courts.

Obviously the views of Mr. Shinwari will have an enormous effect on legal rulings. And some of the precedents he has already set raise serious questions:

On January 24, for instance, Shinwari had told the international press that under the new government, adulterers would be stoned to death, the hands of thieves amputated, and consumers of alcohol given 80 lashes.

He is also opposed to the practice of Christianity. Reuters quoted him as stating: "The Islamic government, according to sharia, is bound to punish those who get involved in anti-Islamic activities. We can punish them for propagating other religions-such as threaten them, expel them and, as a last resort, execute them." Shinwari told a National Public Radio correspondent that Islam has three essential rules. First, a man should be politely invited to accept Islam; second, if he does not convert, he should obey Islam. The third option, if he refuses, is to "behead him."

Two weeks before his appointment as chief justice, Shinwari reiterated that the nation would continue as an Islamic state under all-encompassing sharia law. According to Agence France Presse, Shinwari insisted there would be no "Western-style government" in Afghanistan: "No one will accept it. Only an Islamic government is acceptable to the Afghan people." The 70-year-old justice had lived in exile for nearly 40 years, mostly in Pakistan, where he taught Islamic law at a madrassa. Decorating the wall above his desk, according to the Associated Press, are a sword and a leather lash for flogging. They were left by the Taliban, but Shinwari keeps them up as symbols of the harsh sharia justice which he also endorses.

Not that Shinwari isn't critical of the Taliban. Indeed, he never misses an opportunity to denounce them as "barbaric" for having carried out stonings and amputations as public spectacles in Kabul's sports stadium, rather than in private. He has faulted them for pressing private doctors, and not special prison doctors, to implement sentences of amputation. He has deplored their rushing hastily to judgment, instead of methodically using appropriate procedures. But Shinwari has never backed away from the extreme sharia punishments, and has repeatedly and publicly asserted that he intends to apply them in the supreme court he now heads. "We are not eager to execute criminals or chop off heads," he recently told the Washington Post, "but if all the conditions are fulfilled, [it] is required."

In an absolute sharia state, only the judiciary holds power. Iran's President Khatami has repeatedly complained that religious judges hold the real levers of power and do not allow him to usher in the civil liberties for which he was twice elected. Already in Afghanistan, Karzai's justice ministry has ceded formal control of the central prosecutor's office to the court [although article 134 of the new constitution prohibits this and states that the “Attorney's Office is part the Executive branch, and is independent in its performances.” But then again, so did article 103 of the 1964 constitution which was supposed to be in force until the new constitution was adopted], and a commission on judicial reform was dissolved after religious hard-liners obstructed it [to be resurrected in November 2002 in the form of the Judicial Reform Commission]. If Shinwari's vision of Afghanistan were realized, he and his colleagues on the bench would emerge as the country's most powerful political figures. And the U.S. should not expect much in the way of cooperation from them. Shinwari has already said that he will be lenient with those involved in Afghanistan's opium industry-a priority concern of the State Department-since, as he explained to the press, narcotics are not banned under Islamic law. Nor is it a good sign that he is given to referring to non-Muslims, even in public interviews, as "infidels."

* When two journalists, Mer-hossin Mahdawi and Ali Raza Payam, caused an uproar in some quarters in 2003 by publishing articles (in which one of them they asked: “If Islam is the last and most complete of the revealed religions, why do the Muslim countries lag behind the modern world?”) and a cartoon that were considered blasphemous towards Islam, they were arrested and a death sentence was suggested by the Supreme Court to its fatwa division, which agreed. After an international outcry Mr. Karzai ordered them temporarily released until the trial (even while he said he had ordered their arrest to “protect the constitution and the beliefs of the majority of the people"), during which time they escaped, fled to Pakistan, were recognised there and then applied for and were granted asylum in another country.

* Soon after Afghanistan’s new cabinet was announced in June 2002, Women's Affairs Minister Sima Samar allegedly told a Canadian magazine that she didn’t believe in Sharia (Islamic) law. Mr. Shinwari blew his top and accused her of speaking "against the Islamic nation of Afghanistan." Ms. Samar was formally charged with "blasphemy," which can carry the death penalty. She declined her new post and the charge was dropped under pressure from the United States.

* And recently when the maverick Presidential candidate Latif Pedram made remarks that were critical of the treatment of women under Islam, Mr. Shinwari tried to get him thrown off the ballot although the election board rejected the request.

Article 90 of the constitution states that the National Assembly (“the highest legislative organ”) will be responsible for “Ratification, modification, or abrogation of laws or legislative decrees.”

In addition:

Article 94

Law shall be what both Houses of the National Assembly approve and the President endorses, unless this Constitution states otherwise.

Article 95

The proposal for drafting laws shall be made by the Government or members of the National Assembly or, in the domain of regulating the judiciary, by the Supreme Court, through the Government.

Article 97

Proposals for drafting laws shall be first submitted to the House of the People [the lower house] by the government.

In other words, it is up to the government to pass laws, which can also receive formal suggestions from the Judicial Reform Commission, which was established on the 2nd of November 2002 (as required by the 2001 Bonn Agreement) and is proposed to continue until the end of this year. Its purpose, as the name implies, was to reform the shattered justice system.

In the latter half of December 2002 the Conference on Justice in Afghanistan, which was closed to the media, was held in Rome to discuss the rebuilding of Afghanistan’s justice system. A couple of days before, a discussion group was convened by the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), an intergovernmental organization funded by 11 western countries (including the United States), as well as various multilateral organizations and corporations. The IDLO described it as such:

On December 16-17 2002 the members of the new Afghan Judicial Commission, charged with the reform of Afghanistan’s legal institutions, together with many of the world’s leading experts in Islamic Law took part in a Roundtable, organized by IDLO in Rome on “The Role of Law in a Modern Afghanistan”.
The President of the Supreme Court of Kabul, Almaj Mawlawy Fazal Shinwari, the Chief Public Prosecutor, Abdul Mahmood Daqeeq, and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wahid Monawar, were among the participants of the two-day event.
The results and recommendations of the Roundtable were presented later the same week at the Conference on Justice in Afghanistan, organized by the Italian Government, which was held in Rome on December 19 and 20 and inaugurated by President Hamid Karzai and the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Franco Frattini.

Earlier in the week, Afghanistan's 11-member Judicial Commission, charged with reforming the judiciary, met with about 75 scholars and legal experts in Rome to draft a set of recommendations setting out top priorities. The conclusions of that meeting were that Islamic law has "all the elements that are really required to underpin a human rights agenda and a modern state agenda which are completely compatible with international standards," said William Loris, director-general of the International Development Law Organization, which trains lawyers and judges in developing countries. The Rome-based IDLO is advising the Judicial Commission on how to carry out the reforms.

All the elements, for the world. Judicial Reform Commission Chairman, Bahauddin Baha, was no doubt pleased with the outcome of the two-day meeting (Paknews, 30 November 2002):

The head of a new commission tasked with reforming Afghanistan's legal system said Thursday it will still be based on traditional Islamic law, which allows authorities to sever the hands of thieves and stone adulterers to death.

"No commission will replace the rule of Islam. Our country is an Islamic country and we will implement Islamic law," he said.

He said those laws were still enforced in Afghanistan. However, no amputations or stonings have been reported since the hardline Taliban government was overthrown last year in a U.S.-led war.

Baha said such punishments were unlikely because the burden of proof required is so great that they would be difficult to implement.

"If you read the Quran very carefully, cutting off somebody's hand for theft ... it's very difficult to do," Baha said. "You need a lot of witnesses to verify if a crime actually occurred. It's possible, but it's not easy."

He called the Taliban's harsh interpretation of Sharia an aberration. "What the Taliban practiced was not Sharia law, it was something they made up themselves and it was not acceptable to the people and it was not acceptable to Islam," Baha said.

But it was always going to be this way. In September 2002, before an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Mr. Karzai (who seems likely to retain his position as President after the October 9 presidential poll) was asked about Sharia law in Afghanistan:

President Karzai, we all welcome and are heartened by your affirmation that human rights and tolerance will return to Afghanistan under your leadership. But we also well aware of recent reports of the return of religious police to religious forms. A judicial commission which has indicated its support of Sharia Punishments. Corporal punishments. A chief justice who affirms that amputations will take place but only in private and no longer in public.

He replied:

All very relevant questions, ma'am. The religious police question. It is not a religious police. It is a preaching body. It's like missionaries. Religious elements who want to volunteer to preach spiritual over evil. And there are only 200 of them resistant. No more than that. And the man who was in charge of this who made somehow a statement that was not in keeping with the government's policy was dismissed the next day by the ministry without letting me know. So, when I called the minister to complain about his official, he said the man has been already dismissed. We're very careful about that.

The question of Sharia, ma'am, we are an Islamic country. When you ask a clergy of ... or a man who interprets jurisprudence in accordance with Islam as to what will be the punishment of a man that would steal? The book says cut off his hand. That's the straight answer. But that's not the circumstances in which he does that. It is extremely, extremely difficult in the real interpretation of Sharia to cut off somebody's hand. The hand-cutting part is only applicable, only applicable, if the society has been provided with all the means of work and earning and making a life. In the absence of that, you are not allowed to do that.

So, Afghanistan is not an ideal society for earning money. So, in Afghanistan it will not happen. I asked the chief justice about this when he made the statement. I have told him you have made the statement. This will probably cause a lot of concern. He said, "Yes. The media do not publish the explanation that I had, they only published my statement." So, I assure it will not happen. There are strict, strict rules of earning that kind of punishment. Very strict rules. Very strict rules.

But Ms. Shea of The Center for Religious Freedom (see above), who cited the talk Mr. Karzai gave, was not convinced:

But what if the new court were to dispense with the "strict rules"-as the old Taliban court did? Will critics of the court share Sima Samar's fate and be charged with blasphemy? One of the problems with extreme sharia is that it allows no room for checks on judicial power. Karzai probably knows better, but he is under strong pressure from an Islamist defense minister, Mohammed Fahim, and the still well-armed leaders of the Northern Alliance.

Iran provides a real-time demonstration of how and why extreme sharia law is difficult to reform, let alone remove. In early September, Hashem Aghajari, a leading voice in President Khatami's reformist movement, went on trial for "blasphemy" after giving a speech in which he called for reforms of the sharia system. He could now face the death penalty. Scores of other critics of sharia law have been flogged and jailed in Iran in recent months, and some 60 dissenting publications have been shut down.

The stoning to death of women found guilty of adultery under the Taliban (and, more recently, in Africa) has prompted outraged editorials in the West. But the more fundamental problem of extreme sharia-that its all- powerful judicial apparatus precludes democracy and sharply reduces human freedom across the board-has been all but overlooked. When asked about the development of penal sharia in Afghanistan, a senior State Department official told me recently that State was concerned about Karzai's security, not about sharia. They fail to realize that in a hard-line sharia state, with 7th-century laws and punishments, the supreme court is not merely another branch of government: It's where the real power resides. Countries where religious judges directly command the coercive powers of the state are de facto theocratic. No president or parliament can override their decisions, no politician or journalist can criticize them; to do so would be blasphemy.

THE Afghan Government is in secret talks with senior Taliban figures to let them back into office only 2½ years after the US-led military campaign to remove them from power.

Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the former Taliban foreign minister, and his predecessor Mullah Ghous are among several top Taliban officials staying in government "safe houses" in Kabul during the negotiations.

Envoys of Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's Western-backed President, have promised the former ministers posts in the Government after [the October 9 direct Presidential] elections in return for persuading some of their colleagues to lay down their arms and support his candidacy.

When reports first came out that a former top Taliban official, Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, had been released from custody in the first week of October 2003 from the Bagram air base north of Kabul, it seemed to take Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai by surprise (BBC, 8 October 2003):

Mr Mutawakil's uncle had claimed the former foreign minister was now free in the southern city of Kandahar, apparently confirming an earlier Afghan foreign ministry report [that said he had been released after helping arrange talks between US forces and the Taliban in Kandahar].

However, Mr Karzai told reporters at the presidential palace: "This is not true, this is absolutely not true, he has not been released."

The US special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, standing next to Mr Karzai, added: "We have not released him yet."

It would take about another two weeks before Mr. Karzai confirmed the news on the 21st, but not before a spokesman of his, Jawid Ludin, got into a little spot of confusion himself (BBC, 21 October 2003):

On Tuesday [the 21st] a spokesman for President Karzai, Jawid Ludin, seemed unsure himself as to Mr Mutawakil's whereabouts.
"I have no accurate information," he told the BBC Persian service.
On Monday Mr Ludin appeared to confirm earlier reports saying that Mr Mutawakil had been released from detention at the US airbase at Bagram, near Kabul.
But he has now told the BBC that: "So far as we understand he is still under arrest and not yet released."
"I don't know if he is in Kandahar or Bagram," Mr Ludin said.

Also today [the 21st], former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakil said he and other former Taliban officials are willing to give their support to the government of Hamid Karzai.

Jawed Ludin, a spokesman for Karzai, said Mutawakil sent a letter to Karzai from his home in Kandahar making the offer.

His release (now said to have been on the 15th) and offer were confirmed on the 25th by Khalid Pashtun, spokesman for Kandahar Governor Mohammed Yusuf Pashtun (CNN, 25 October 2003):

"We have invited other Taliban also who have been released from custody to come together and join hands, and participate in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the country," Pashtun told The Associated Press.

The spokesman said Muttawakil would be able to participate in nationwide elections set for next year, the first since the Taliban were forced from power by a U.S.-led coalition in late 2001.

President Hamid Karzai's spokesman Jawid Luddin said Thursday that the government was considering whether to accept an offer of aid from Muttawakil but would do so only if it was determined that Muttawakil wasn't directly involved in terrorist acts or crimes against the Afghan people.

Muttawakil is believed to have been a moderate member of the hard-line Taliban movement and had previously been held by the U.S. military at its main base in Bagram, north of the capital, Kabul.

Adding to the confusion were reports in the media that there had been a meeting between Mr. Mutawakil and US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage during the latter's visit to Afghanistan (this before Mr. Mutawakil was reported to have been released), although these were denied.

It all began when...

Talk of reaching out to the “moderate” Taliban began in October 2001. The idea was to divide the Taliban movement and then co-opt those who weren’t considered to be hardline, ostensibly those not allied with the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar. This campaign was led by the Taliban’s immediate patron in the region, Pakistan, as well as the leader of the coalition to oust the Taliban, the United States (San Francisco Chronicle, 17 October 2001):

The United States and Pakistan agreed yesterday to work urgently for the creation of a new, broad-based government in Afghanistan that both sides said could include moderate elements of the Taliban movement, whose present leadership is now a target for the U.S.-led military campaign.

India was not pleased, while the reaction from the Northern Alliance was mixed, with their political leader and former Afghan President, Burhanuddin Rabbani endorsing the call, while their foreign minister, Dr. Abdullah, denounced the plan and the very existence of moderate Taliban (San Francisco Chronicle, 17 October 2001):

"There is no such thing as moderate Taliban elements. Their object is terror and fanaticism. So who would expect us to join such a government with such people? This is against the objective of the international alliance against terrorism."

The Moderate

If the criteria for endorsement were based on no longer being associated with Mr. Omar, then it can’t be seen as too much of a surprise that Mr. Mutawakil was enlisted (although apparently he wanted to be given shelter in Qatar). He defected from the main Taliban group reportedly because of a disagreement with Mr. Omar over the harbouring of Osama bin Laden just before the US invaded, before surrendering to US forces a few months later in Kandahar. But then again, he chose to have a disagreement with Mr. Omar as military action against his regime was already on its way and not before or even a little after President Clinton issued Executive Order 13129 of July 4, 1999:

I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the United States of America, find that the actions and policies of the Taliban in Afghanistan, in allowing territory under its control in Afghanistan to be used as a safe haven and base of operations for Usama bin Ladin and the Al-Qaida organization who have committed and threaten to continue to commit acts of violence against the United States and its nationals, constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.

MOTAWAKIL (through translator): The football stadium is a place of leisure, a place for playing games, a place for joy. When justice is done on behalf of a victim, that too is a joyful event, which brings order and security to society.

SHAH (on camera): But the international community paid for the football stadium. They wanted the Afghan people to play football there. Instead, you are executing people there.

MOTAWAKIL (through translator): I will make the international community an offer. In Afghanistan, everything has been destroyed. If they help us to build a separate place suitable for carrying out executions, we have no problem with that. When they criticize us 10 times, they should at least help us once. They should build a place for executions and get financial support so that football could be played at the stadium and our work can be done as well.

And while it has been reported that he opposed the destruction of the Buddhist statues in 2001, he publicly defended the plans.

"Our problem is mainly with the top Taliban -- who may number no more than 150 people -- who had links with al Qaeda. Those people are the enemies of Afghanistan and we are against them. But those Taliban who are doing jobs and tilling the fields and working as shopkeepers, we want to welcome those Taliban."

A broad-based government

Karzai said he wants Afghan clerics to be in parliament like Pakistans pro-Taliban Islamist leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman, from the Pakistans six-party Islamist alliance which swept to victory in North West Frontier Province and holds the balance of power in the federal parliament.

Afghanistan is in a precarious situation. While the number of Taliban members engaged in fighting is estimated to be in the thousands (and less than 10,000) the movement still has wide support from the Pashtun people who make up 40% of Afghanistan's population. Whether the "reformed" ex-Taliban leaders will be able to attract support from the Taliban faithful is uncertain. Mr. Omah was reported to have immediately "disowned" Mr. Mutawakil upon hearing of the news, although his ex-communication probably occurred a few years ago upon his defection. Within the Taliban, Mr. Omah's voice is generally undisputed. Defections from the Taliban were a lot easier a few years ago when the threat and actuality of superior firepower, particularly from the air, on the part of the United States came into play. But a resurgentTaliban, engaged in guerrilla warfare, are proving a lot tougher to deal with. And while a chequebook being waved around may prove handy for recruiting those more malleable Taliban sympathisers in a country where it is said that you cannot buy an Afghan but can rent him, loyalties can easily be switched.

It is somewhat troubling that while the stated purpose of Mr. Karzai and the United States to have an Afghanistan free of the Taliban organisation in power, former leaders such as Mr. Mutawakil, the former health minister Mullah Ghous and the former intelligence minister Mullah Mohammad Khaksar are beingrecruited for government posts, not to mention positive referrals being made by Mr. Karzai towards the Pro-Taliban Islamist in Pakistan, Maulana Fazlur Rehman. What short-term gains might be made in drawing these "forces" away from other "interests" or "countries" could easily be overtaken in the medium- to long-term by the bad example this sets.

And this all surely raises the point that if there are indeed moderate Taliban "who are doing jobs and tilling the fields and working as shopkeepers," surely, at best, they are the only ones who should be recruited, so that further "mistakes" will not have to be unlearned in the future.

Comparing a politician to a drunken sailor is quite unfair, on the sailor. Although such a comparison is not new (US Republican Senator John McCain, for instance, accused the US Congress last year of doing the same, with President Bush being complicit in it), it is still egregious.

Firstly, the drunken sailor is spending his own money (and on much more enjoyable things), or, if he decides to put some of it away for a rainy day, he saves it. The politician is spending someone else’s money, usually obtained through taxes (where a dollar spent by the government is a dollar not spent or saved by a taxpayer). Some of it may be returned, although not necessarily in the form or proportion that is hoped.

Secondly, when the drunken sailor sobers up the next morning, or the next week, the hangover is all his. Whether he was drinking cheap booze, mixing his drinks or using his schooner as an ashtray is his own problem. The ill-effects of any spending spree, whether they be a diversion of private savings or the inefficient use of resources, will generally fall on the general public, while politicians can rest a little easier thanks to their hangover cure, the taxpayer-funded salary or taxpayer-funded retirement package.

Thirdly, if the drunken sailor finds himself short of cash and isn't willing to stop racking up his tab, short of picking up a broken beer bottle and thrusting it at the throat of a hapless patron he has to borrow some and then pay it back himself at a later date. A politician too must borrow (where a dollar borrowed by the government is a dollar not lent to the private sector). And if the borrowing is not from the public (who incidentally have to pay it back eventually) and rather from the monetary system, the possibility of inflation rears its ugly head.

“That creates challenges and that's why I can't give blanket guarantees and I didn't think people would expect me to because, on the one hand, they don't want the boats to come. They want us to do everything we can to deter them. But they don't want us to behave other than in a decent, Australian fashion.”

Ask him why he was first out of the starter’s gate (the Democrats said nothing for days) to protest over the Coalition’s turning back of the Tampa last year, and he says in a matter-of-fact way: “Because that’s the way we think.”

“We appeared to be operating in a moral vacuum which reached its zenith when our political leaders and the majority of the community were as one in refusing to allow the Tampa asylum seekers to reach our shores.”

Refugee groups, the Australian Democrats and the Australian Greens regretted the harm the tough policy had done to Australia's image. Democrats immigration spokesman Andrew Bartlett said the government had turned its back on the nation's international obligations in a fear campaign aimed at winning votes. "It was a disgrace then, and it is a disgrace now," Senator Bartlett said in a statement.

An opinion poll published in The Australian newspaper Tuesday showed more than three-quarters of those surveyed did not back action against Iraq with U.N. backing. The Newspoll showed 57 percent approved of a war against Iraq if it had the support of the United Nations, but 76 percent did not support non U.N.-sanctioned actions.

“Surveys and polls over the last few months, including today, have demonstrated that the vast majority of Australians are opposed to Australia's involvement in a US led war against Iraq. Today I speak together with those Australians. I share their deep concerns and I share the many, many questions that they and others in this chamber have.”

“It is clear from the opinion polls, the nationwide rallies several days ago and ongoing events such as this one, that the Prime Minister has failed to convince the Australian people of the case for war…”

Opinion polls suggest John Howard is about to lead an unwilling nation into battle. The majority of Australians believe war should only be waged with the approval of the United Nations. Mr Howard has acknowledged that many people disagree with him, but he is forging on regardless.

"So I say we need trust in government. We need a government that comes clean under all circumstances of the Australian people. We teach our children to tell the truth. We need a government that is willing to do the same, for the benefit of the Australian people."

Under normal circumstances there is one certainty about elections: no matter which political party wins or loses power, parliament will still be around. And from parliament can a national government be formed. Which is okay for most Australians on the 9th of October who trust the process and institution enough. But pity most Lithuanians a day later when they come to vote for their new parliament for the next four years, the Seimas.

Lithuanians haven't had that many reasons for trusting anyone throughout their history. At the end of the 18th century the Russians occupied them, persecuting Catholics and suppressing the Lithuanian's language. The First World War saw it occupied by the Germans. She gained independence for the next two decades, albeit with Poland occupying its capital, Vilnius, for most of the time. With the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact being signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, Lithuania was handed over to the Nazis. After refusing to join in the attack on Poland, it was handed over to the Soviets in 1940 and in came the Soviet military, with communists taking power of the government. Caught in the middle between two monstrous powers, Lithuania was invaded by the Nazis in 1941 where her Jews, amongst others, were slaughtered. In 1944 back came the Soviets and kept the heel firmly on her neck until Lithuania became the first Baltic State to declare independence from the Soviet Union in March 1990, a decision which the Soviets predictably tried to suppress with an economic blockade and troops being deployed, until September 1991 when she was granted independence by the Soviet government. Still, Russian troops remained on Lithuania's soil and it would take an agreement in September 1992 for the troops to leave by August 1993, which they were to do. (The ultimate affirmation of Lithuania's secession from the Russians came when they joined NATO in March of this year, followed by membership of the EU in May.)

Lithuania (population 3.6 million; GDP per capita of $11,200 - purchasing power parity), surrounded by Poland, Belarus, Latvia, Kaliningrad (the Russian enclave) and the Baltic Sea, has had interesting times since she gained her latest independence. Algirdas Brazauskas, now Prime Minister, became Lithuania's first president in 1993 and resigned as leader of the Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party (now the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party), the party which broke away from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He stayed in power until 1998, after not seeking re-election. Instead he bided his time until July 2001 when he became Prime Minister. He appointed the economist Adolfas Slezevicius as Prime Minister in 1993, who began to implement economic and political reforms away from the former policies of the Soviet Union. He was succeeded in 1996 by Laurynas Mindaugas Stankevicius, also from the Democratic Labor Party, who then was replaced by Gediminas Vagnoriusa of the conservative Homeland Union (which grew out of the "movement for independence" the Lithuanian Movement for Restructuring or Sajudis), until 1999.

If you think the names are complicated enough, nationalpolitics, with its inordinate amount of parliamentary factions, will turn you into Linda Blair. Lithuania has a unicameral system of parliament (one house, as opposed to Australia's bicameral system of a Senate or upper house) with the Seimas consisting of 141 members, with 71 of them being elected in single seat constituencies and the other 70 on a proportional representation basis (that is, if the party gains 5% of the vote). The head of state is the President, currently Valdas Adamkus, who holds office for a five year term based on a popular vote, with a maximum of two terms allowable. The President chooses the Prime Minister subject to the approval of the Seimas, can dismiss the Prime Minister, accept resignations from Ministers and the Government, as well as appoint Ministers subject to the recommendations of the Prime Minister. He or she appoints the head of the army and secret service, has quite a large say in the composition of the judicial branch and represents Lithuania internationally. The Government is the executive power and decides on the policies and programs of the country, implements the law, prepares the budget, as well as ensuring the safety of the nation and constitution, subject to approval of the Seimas. As the polls stand now, the newly formed Labor Party, led by Belarus-born Victor Uspaskich, is way ahead, with the contest for coalitions firmly underway.

The record of Lithuania's economy has been mixed, as is its form. While not much was heard about her economy during the 1990s, in 1998 the economy tanked after the Russian economic meltdown but managed, during the ushering in of the new millennium, to recover, thanks to increased foreign investment and cuts in government spending. Lithuania joined the WTO in 2001. A real growth rate of 6.7% put it at the top of the economic pile in Europe in 2002 and the stats have continued to be positive. While it led the other two Baltic states in growth rates, the Baltic Tigers still have some way to go to even come close to catching the EU in economic terms, with per capital incomes around one-fifth the level of their new mother.

A controversial aspect of Lithuania's political system has been the privatising of former state industries, with 80% of them now having been sold off, with many deals being botched. The biggest sale was in 1999 of 33% of Mazeikiu Naftu, which operated the Mazeikiai oil refinery, to the American company Williams, which gained management control and the right to buy a majority stake in the company within five years. (In 2002, Yukos, a Russian oil company acquired a controlling interest in Mazeikiu Nafta and became the operator of the refinery.)

Then Prime Minister Rolandas Paksas, who began his tenure in May 1999, resigned in October 1999 over the deal, which he said was unfavourable. In November 2000 he again became Prime Minister using the outrage over the deal to propel him into power. He was to lose power in June 2001. In March 2002 he became chairman of the new Liberal Democratic Party and was elected in January 2003 as President, beating out incumbent Valdus Adamkus (the current President). In January 2004, impeachment proceedings by the parliament were brought against Paksas for corruption (whichiswidespread in Lithuanian life), as well as allegations that he had close links to the Russian secret service and Russian mafia. In March 2004, the Constitutional Court of Lithuania found him guilty of violating the Lithuanian Constitution: for leaking state secrets, rewarding a financial supporter with citizenship and illegally influencing companies. Ironically, another controversial privatisation deal, this time over an alcohol company, led to his ultimate demise. The Lithuanian company underbid a Latvian competitor and was charged with getting leaks from the office of Paksas.

The Seimas chucked him out in April 2004. He tried to run for the June 2004 elections for President but this was scuppered by the Seimas bringing in a law in May 2004 preventing impeached presidents from running for 5 years; the Constitutional Court then banned him for life. Undeterred, his supporters registered a coalition for the general elections, promising to have a referendum amending the constitution to bring him back. He then informed reporters that the number eight position of the coalition on the ballot would get them 50 seats for “numerological reasons,” because “everyone knows that eight is an auspicious number.” This barking at the moon behaviour was not atypical for Paksas who has been accused in the past of being unduly under the influence of a Rasputin-life faith healer and mystic, Lena Lolisvili, who it is alleged candidates had to meet before going to Paksas, a scenario that didn't go down too well in this Catholic country.

So former parliamentarian and leader Paksas is gone, for now. And perhaps this election will be the start of new things to come. But then again, maybe not, if this recent dispatch from the Baltic Times is any indication:

22.09.2004

Police chief: Kaunas mafia bosses eyeing parliamentary seats

By Milda Seputyte

VILNIUS - Another foray in the fight against corruption and the criminal underworld has apparently started off on a wrong foot again after police commissioner General Vytautas Grigaravicius announced on Sept. 20 that the Kaunas mob was trying to implant some of its people in the Parliament.

When Frank Wills, a security guard at the Watergate office complex in Washington D.C., noticed adhesive tape on the lock of a door connecting the building’s basement garage to a stairwell on June 17, 1972 and called the police, little did he know how wide the reverberations would be as a result.

One of these has been the almost knee-jerk attachment of the suffix ‘–gate’ by the media (which now includes the blogosphere) to seemingly every public scandal since, for instance, Koreagate, Billygate, Irangate, Nannygate and Paulagate. The latest is Rathergate, referring to the current furore over allegedly fake memos that CBS's "60 Minutes," presented by Dan Rather, aired in order to prove that President George W. Bush shirked his duties during his time with the National Guard in the 1970s.

The original ‘–gate’ was of course the site of the bungled burglary into the offices of the Democratic National Committee and had nothing to do with water.

Yet the label would soon stick no matter how far in type or severity the scandals were from their original inspiration, as a few examples from the past decade or so have proved.

When it was revealed in 2000 that the Gore campaign had received a videotape of a Bush debate practice session, the label Debategate was not too far behind. That it had already been used to describe the case of a copy of the Carter campaign’s debate briefing book being sent to the Reagan campaign in 1980 proved no impediment. Not to mention that neither involved burglaries.

In 2002 three San Francisco police officers beat up two men outside a bar. One of the officers was Alex Fagan, Jr. whose father had just been promoted to Assistant Chief of Police. Allegations of obstruction of justice over the incident were later pursued before a grand jury. The twist was that the officers had demanded the men hand over their takeout fajitas. So there were no more fajitas for the men and Fajitagate was born.

During the half time show of this year’s Super Bowl, pop stars Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson got in trouble when he exposed her breast. This was dubbed Nipple-Gate even though the problem was that there was no cover-up.

The rest of the world has not been immune. In England there was Camillagate, involving an extramarital love affair between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles and a phone call.

Back stateside, a $200 haircut for President Clinton in Airforce One on the runway of LAX in 1993, which it was alleged was holding up traffic, became Haircutgate. It was to be later rendered on a par in the political lexicon with Monicagate, which had much more in common with Watergate than any other of the ‘–gates’, with an impeachment vote for a president, including charges of obstruction of justice. One wonders by how much their relative importance has been diluted as a result of this naming game.

It makes an interesting diversion to speculate how differently things could have turned out that early morning at the Watergate. When Frank Wills first noticed the tape on the door he initially thought it was the work of a cleaner wanting to keep the door open and so he removed it. On his return ten minutes later he found that it had been replaced. It was then that he became sufficiently suspicious to make that phone call.

If chief burglar James McCord, instead of replacing the tape, had just called off the operation, the police probably would not have arrived and discovered similarly taped doors throughout the stairwell up to the sixth floor leading to the Democratic offices. President Nixon, who famously declared that he wasn’t a crook, may not have been publicly affirmed as such and the media wouldn’t have had Watergate to kick around anymore.

And what effect, if any, would there have been on the media’s propensity to auto-dub scandals if the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the time had not been in the Watergate, but perhaps instead their later headquarters, the Mayflower Hotel? Billyflower sure packs less of a punch. Or what if the owners of Watergate had decided on a different name for their building?

What is more certain though is that the general public, already weary of high profile scandals with the accompanying proclamations of lessons learned and promises of stiff action to follow, and being presented with a string of indistinct sounding scandals like drops in the often murky sea of public life, are more hesitant to walk over to the water’s edge.

A Model D IBM typewriter could have reproduced the memos about George W. Bush in the 1970s. Zzzzzzzzzz.

Contact with the Cook Islands’ only patrol boat that has been collecting ballots in the northern islands has been lost for three days. I wiped the drool off my keyboard.

The news report, from Thursday the 14th, added that boats went out of radio contact all the time in the northern areas and that authorities thus didn’t fear it was missing. A day later it was still missing, with the Democratic Party ready to claim victory in the national elections within 24 hours. And then a few hours ago they did, with fourteen of the seats, versus the opposition Cook Islands Party’s nine seats, with a split vote on the northern island of Rakahanga.

The results should have been in on Wednesday the 9th when the five-yearly elections (now to be every four years thanks to the overwhelming referendum vote on the same day) were held for the 25-member Cook Islands’ lower house of parliament, 24 of them representing those on the island and one for those living outside of the Cook Islands. Which is quite a few members considering that there were 9,700 registered voters for the poll, with the total resident population coming in at approximately 13,400 people. This may be one of the reasons why a lot of voter dissatisfaction was reported before the election, but nothing which a bit of pork couldn’t help solve, sometimes even literally, with pigs being dished out for family events.

As for the big seats in this group of islands situated about half way between Hawaii and New Zealand, Prime Minister Dr Robert Woonton of the Democratic Party beat out the opposition Cook Islands Party President Henry Puna for his Manihiki seat by four votes, with the final tally being 142-138 after being 15 votes behind at one stage. It is not clear though that he will be elected Prime Minister by the parliament, with former PM and Democratic Party leader Dr Tereapai Maoate in the running to oust him after he himself was ousted in 2002. Using a Westminster-style system, the Prime Minister is chosen by the majority party.

The controversial former cabinet minister Norman George, who recently formed the Tumu Enua Party and held the balance of power (and has also been unfavourably compared to New Zealand rabblerouser Winston Peters), lost his seat to the Democratic Party’s Eugene Tatuava by 67 to 73 votes. He cried foul, claiming that ballot boxes had been tampered with. Maybe he can take it up with election observers who were present, who recommended to the government that the electoral office be computerised.

Where the money would come from is another story. The Cook Islands, which became “self-governing in association with New Zealand” in August 1965 after it was earlier made a protectorate in 1888 by the British, is a country in decline, as evidenced by the departure of its citizens overseas, mainly to New Zealand where they are also eligible for New Zealand citizenship. The ratio of those Cook Islanders who live outside of it compared to inside is three to one. Infrastructure is weak. And although it has some sort of agricultural industry with citrus and copra (from coconuts) products, along with tourism, manufacturing (fruit-processing, clothing, and handicrafts) and black pearl production, it still relies on millions of dollars of aid from New Zealand (although it also gets aid from Australia as well as being a recent recipient of $NZ4 million from China for recognising Beijing’s “ownership of Taiwan.”) Another boat would also be good.